DESCRIPTION

The function set_field_type declares a data type for a given form field.
This is the type checked by validation functions.
The predefined types are as follows:

TYPE_ALNUM

Alphanumeric data. Requires a third int argument, a minimum field width.

TYPE_ALPHA

Character data. Requires a third int argument, a minimum field width.

TYPE_ENUM

Accept one of a specified set of strings. Requires a third (char **)
argument pointing to a string list; a fourth int flag argument to enable
case-sensitivity; and a fifth int flag argument specifying whether a partial
match must be a unique one (if this flag is off, a prefix matches the first
of any set of more than one list elements with that prefix). Please notice
that the string list is not copied, only a reference to it is stored in the
field. So you should avoid using a list that lives in automatic variables
on the stack.

TYPE_INTEGER

Integer data, parsable to an integer by atoi(3). Requires a third
int argument controlling the precision, a fourth long argument
constraining minimum value, and a fifth long constraining maximum value.
If the maximum value is less than or equal to the minimum value, the range is
simply ignored. On return the field buffer is formatted according to the
printf format specification ".*ld", where the * is replaced by the
precision argument.
For details of the precision handling see printfs man-page.

TYPE_NUMERIC

Numeric data (may have a decimal-point part). Requires a third
int argument controlling the precision, a fourth double
argument constraining minimum value, and a fifth double constraining
maximum value. If your system supports locales, the decimal point character
to be used must be the one specified by your locale.
If the maximum value is less than or equal to the minimum value, the range is
simply ignored. On return the field buffer is formatted according to the
printf format specification ".*f", where the * is replaced by the
precision argument.
For details of the precision handling see printfs man-page.

TYPE_REGEXP

Regular expression data. Requires a regular expression (char *) third argument;
the data is valid if the regular expression matches it. Regular expressions
are in the format of regcomp and regexec. Please notice
that the regular expression must match the whole field. If you have for
example an eight character wide field, a regular expression "^[0-9]*$" always
means that you have to fill all eight positions with digits. If you want to
allow fewer digits, you may use for example "^[0-9]* *$" which is good for
trailing spaces (up to an empty field), or "^ *[0-9]* *$" which is good for
leading and trailing spaces around the digits.

TYPE_IPV4

An Internet Protocol Version 4 address. This requires no additional argument. It
is checked whether or not the buffer has the form a.b.c.d, where a,b,c and d are
numbers between 0 and 255. Trailing blanks in the buffer are ignored. The address
itself is not validated. Please note that this is an ncurses extension. This
field type may not be available in other curses implementations.

It is possible to set up new programmer-defined field types. See the
fieldtype(3FORM) manual page.

RETURN VALUE

The functions field_type and field_arg return NULL on
error. The function set_field_type returns one of the following:

E_OK

The routine succeeded.

E_SYSTEM_ERROR

System error occurred (see errno).

SEE ALSO

ncurses(3NCURSES), form(3FORM).

NOTES

The header file <form.h> automatically includes the header file
<curses.h>.

PORTABILITY

These routines emulate the System V forms library. They were not supported on
Version 7 or BSD versions.

AUTHORS

Juergen Pfeifer. Manual pages and adaptation for new curses by Eric
S. Raymond.